The Average Black Family Would Need 228 Years to Build the Wealth of a White Family Today

WN: The poor are invariably blamed for their poverty. This article, applicable to other “democracies”, challenges this perverse blaming of victims.

an excerpt:

(Please click on image above for source)

A truly perverse aspect of this story is that just as past public policies created the racial wealth gap, current policy continues to widen it. The federal government spends a fortune subsidizing wealth-building activities like paying for college, saving for retirement or buying a home, but most of those dollars go to people who already have wealth. Since 1994, government spending on wealth-building has more than tripled—from $200 billion in 1994 to $660 billion last year—according to the IPS/CFED study. The costliest of those subsidies is the home-mortgage tax deduction, and a 2013 study by the National Priorities Project found that 77 percent of those benefits go to households with annual incomes between $75,000 and $500,000. Similarly, an estimated two-thirds of all public subsidies for retirement savings go to those with incomes in the top 20 percent of the distribution. We’re spending a fortune on wealth building, but very little of it ends up bolstering the net worths of poor people and people of color.

Please click on: Wealth Gap Widening

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